The DIY guitar that shook the world: Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein.
Hello! This month we're going to explore a very unique wiring created by a guy from the Netherlands named Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, better known as Eddie Van Halen. The development of his playing style is inextricably linked to his famous DIY guitar, nicknamed Frankenstein, which Eddie put together out of factory-second Charvel parts in the 1970s. The result was one of the most unique guitar designs ever, both electronically and cosmetically.
Frankenstein's ash body and maple neck were produced by Wayne Charvel, one of the godfathers of so-called "Super Strat" guitars, which are characterized by their use of humbuckers, simple wiring, and sophisticated tremolo hardware. The body Eddie bought had HSS routing, and he was fascinated by the idea of using a bridge humbucker for a Gibson-like tone. Eddie installed a PAF humbucker from his ES-335 and cannibalized the tremolo unit from his Strat. (The Floyd Rose unit was added later.) The pickup was installed at a slight angle to compensate for the differing string spacings of the Fender tremolo and the Gibson humbucker. Later he replaced the PAF with a Seymour Duncan humbucker.
The cosmetics.
This guitar was repainted several times. Initially Eddie painted it black, applied masking tape strips to the dry paintjob, and then painted it white. (He also stuck a Gibson decal on the headstock.) For a while, he switched to a guitar nicknamed the Bumblebee for its flashy black and yellow paintjob. This guitar didn't perform as well, so he switched back to Frankenstein, but not before re-taping the body and adding a coat of red bicycle paint.
In order to mislead companies trying hard to sell "EVH guitars," Eddie installed a red single-coil pickup in the neck position, but it wasn't connected to the circuit.
Other visual "upgrades" were a quarter coin screwed into the body to fill a gap between the body and the tremolo. He also added reflectors on the rear of the body and two hook-eyed screws as substitute strap buttons. A strip of double-sided masking tape served as a pick holder.
Eddie also changed the neck pickup often and tried several different tremolo systems. He originally made his own pickguard from a vinyl record, using the lower part of a standard Strat pickguard as a template. He later replaced this with a similar part made from regular black/white/black pickguard material.
The electronics. Eddie drilled all the standard Strat holes into his DIY pickguard, but added only a single 500k audio volume pot topped by a standard white Strat tone knob, leaving the other holes unpopulated. This is one of the simplest circuits ever: a single humbucker connected to a volume control and an output jack! This simple wiring supports Eddie's trademark tone very well, and companies like Charvel and ESP have also used such minimal controls to get a pure sound. With only a volume control, you're just one step away from wiring the pickup directly to the output jack. This provides a lot of high-end definition, perfect for Eddie's tapping techniques.
Fig. 1: The original Van Halen wiring. Diagram courtesy of Seymour Duncan.
To get close to Eddie's tone, use a Strat with a bridge humbucker, wiring it to a single 500k audio volume pot, as shown in Fig. 1. (The color scheme shown applies to Seymour Duncan pickups. Pickup wire colors vary between brands.)
For a humbucker with two-conductor cables, the hot wire goes where the black wire appears in the diagram, and the outer shield goes to ground (indicated in the diagram by the bare and green wires taped together).
Before we talk mods, a funny side note: In order to mislead companies trying hard to sell "Van Halen guitars," Eddie installed a red single-coil pickup in the neck position, but it wasn't connected to the circuit. Eddie even mounted a standard 3-way switch in the middle pickup rout, but it too was unconnected. This is a prime example of the famous Dutch sense of humor.
Possible mods. With such a simple circuit, mods are always possible. Here are some suggestions for improved flexibility:
- Add a standard tone control like on a Telecaster. Experiment with both 250k and 500k resistances and try various tone-cap values."
- If you use a humbucker with four-conductor wiring, you can add a coil-cut switch (or replace the volume pot with a push/pull or push/push pot). This provides a single-coil tone from the humbucker in split mode.
Fig. 2: This mod adds a fixed tone control and a kill switch. Diagram courtesy of guitarwiring.blogspot.com.
Fig. 2 shows a clever and versatile mod for any heavy axe. It has a fixed tone control, plus a kill switch for stunning stuttering effects (and to shut down the guitar when not playing). That way, you can get warmer distortion tones if needed. Choose your preferred cap value. (I wouldn't use the indicated .047 µF cap myself.)
That's it! Next month we'll explore a much more complex mod. Until then, keep on modding!
[Updated 9/9/21]
- The World's Weirdest Guitar Mods and Builds - Premier Guitar ›
- The Legend of Slash's Appetite for Destruction Les Paul - Premier ... ›
- In Memoriam: Edward Lodewijk Van Halen - Premier Guitar | The ... ›
- The World’s Weirdest Guitar Mods and Builds - Premier Guitar ›
- The World’s Weirdest Guitar Mods and Builds - Premier Guitar ›
- How to Get the Most out of Hum-Sing-Hum Wiring - Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: Strat-PRS Crossover Wiring - Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: How to Shield Single-Coil Pickups - Premier Guitar ›
- Quintessential Rock Rigs by Decade - Premier Guitar ›
- Mammoth WVH Wolf Van Halen Guitar Rig Rundown - Premier Guitar ›
- Mammoth WVH Wolf Van Halen Guitar Rig Rundown - Premier Guitar ›
- Inside Van Halen’s Casbah - Premier Guitar ›
- How to Wire a Passive Treble and Bass Circuit for Guitar ›
- Wolf Van Halen and EVH announce new signature guitar ›
EMG SL20 Steve Lukather Signature Pre-wired Pickguard with 3 Pickups - Black Pearl
While creating her new solo record, Kim Deal was drawn to exploring the idea of failure.
Deal isn’t smiling on the cover of Nobody Loves You More, her new album, but the art bears some similarities: Deal is floating on a platform in an expanse of gentle, dark blue waves, accompanied only by a few pastel-colored amps, her guitar, a stool, and a flamingo. It’s an unmistakably lonely image, but for Deal, failure doesn’t mean loneliness. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing.
“I mean, at least something magnificent was tried, you know?” says Deal. “At least there was something to fail. That’s an endearing thing. I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their ass kicked, because they were in it. It warms my heart to see that, just people getting out there. Maybe it gives me the courage and confidence to try something. It’s okay if I get my butt kicked. At least you’re trying something.”
“I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their fucking ass kicked, because they were fucking in it.”
Nobody Loves You More feels at least a little like Van Ader’s journey: an artistic project so long in the making and so precious to its creator that they’re willing to break from all conventions and face the abject terror of being judged by the world. That might seem like nothing new for Deal, who’s played music professionally for over 35 years, first with Pixies, then with the Breeders. But this LP marks her first proper solo album under her own name—a thought that mortified her for a long time. (“I like rock bands,” she says.) Even when she recorded and released what could be called “solo” music, she released it under a pseudonym. Initially, it was to be Tammy and the Amps. “I still was so uncomfortable, so I created Tammy and the Amps,” explains Deal. “I’m Tammy, who are my band? It’s the amplifiers downstairs in my basement. But the Tammy thing sort of got on my nerves so I just dropped it, so it was called the Amps.” She also assembled a band around that concept and released Pacer under the Amps’ name in 1995.
The cover art for Nobody Loves You More echoes the doomed last voyage of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader.
This new record hums with the soft-loud energetic alchemy that defines much of Deal’s previous works. The opening title track is a slow, romantic strummer with string arrangements, while “Coast” is faintly ska-indebted with horns and a ragged Blondie chord progression. “Crystal Breath” gets weirder, with distorted drums, synthy bass, and a detuned, spidery guitar lead. “Disobedience” and “Big Ben Beat” continue the darker and heavier trajectories with fuzzy stompers interspersed with ambient, affective interlude tracks like “Bats in the Afternoon Sky.” It’s a patient, sensitive, and unmistakably scrappy record.
Some of the songs on Nobody Loves You More are as up-close and personal as solo records get. One in particular that’s drawn attention is “Are You Mine?,” a sleepy-eyed, lullaby ballad. At first listen, it could be taken for a love song. (In fact, Deal encourages this interpretation.) But it’s a song about her mother, for whom Deal cared in her home while she died from Alzheimer’s. The song title comes from a gut-wrenching moment.
“I was in the house, she doesn’t know my name,” explains Deal. “She’s still walking, she can form words, but she doesn’t know what a daughter is or anything. She passes me in the hallway, stops, grabs my arm and says, ‘Are you mine?’ She doesn’t know my name, she doesn’t know who I am, but there was a connection. I knew she was asking if I was her baby. I said, ‘Yeah, mama, I’m yours.’ I’m sure five seconds later, she forgot that conversation even happened. It was just a flicker, but it was so sweet. To have her not see me in so long, and then for one brief second, be recognized in some capacity…. She was such a sweet lady.”
Deal’s mother wasn’t the only loss that went into this collection of songs. Her father passed, too, after a prolonged illness. “My dad was this big bravado sort of personality and watching them get extinguished a little bit every day… I don’t know,” she says. “They both died at home. I’m very proud of that.” But writing “Are You Mine?” wasn’t painful for Deal; she says it was a comforting experience writing the gentle arpeggio on her Candelas nylon-string acoustic.
Deal assembled the bulk of Nobody Loves You More in her Dayton, Ohio, basement, recording with Pro Tools and a particularly pleasing Electrodyne microphone preamp. (Some of the songs date back more than a decade—versions of “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was” were initially recorded in 2011 and released as part of a series of 7" singles.) Deal recorded a good part of the record’s drums, bass, and guitar from home, but other contributions came in fits and spurts over the years, from old faces and new. Her Breeders bandmates, including Mando Lopez, Jim MacPherson, Britt Walford, and sister Kelley Deal, all pitched in, as did Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan from British post-punk band Savages, and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence.
Kim Deal cared for her parents in their Dayton, Ohio, home until their passing, an experience that colors the music on her new solo record.
Photo by Steve Gullick
Kim Deal's Gear
Guitars
- '90s Fender Stratocaster
- '70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul
- Candelas nylon-string acoustic
Amps
- Marshall JCM900
- 4x12 cabinet
- Kalamazoo combo
Strings & Picks
- .011-gauge strings
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .60 mm
One day, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer stopped by the studio to see what Deal was working on. He listened to “Wish I Was,” and scrambled together a lead idea. Deal kept the part and expanded it over time, leading to Klinghoffer’s writing credit on the record.
Deal used her trademark red ’90s Fender Stratocaster HSS along with a ’70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul for most of the electric work, pumped through either her long-time Marshall JCM900 or a tiny vintage Kalamazoo combo. Deal has never been a gearhead—at one point on our video call, she uses a tooth flosser as a pick to demonstrate some parts on her Candelas. “Kelley is a pedal person,” she says. “I’m not doing leads. I’m just doing a rhythm that needs to sound good.”
“I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually, or I’m a sociopath because I don’t even talk about [Steve Albini] in the past tense.”Over the years, Deal’s sonic thumbprint has been tied up in the work of her good friend and frequent collaborator Steve Albini, the producer, engineer, and musician who died unexpectedly in May 2024. (Deal quips, “Steve’s the lead character in my own life.”) Albini and Deal began working together in 1988, on Pixies’ debut LP Surfer Rosa. Their friendship continued over decades—Deal even performed at Albini’s wedding in Hawaii, for which he gifted her a ukulele—and the final sessions for Nobody Loves You More were under Albini’s watch. His parting hasn’t been easy.
“I got a text: ‘Call me,’” remembers Deal. It was a mutual friend, telling Deal that Albini had passed. “He told me and I just said, ‘You’re absolutely wrong. That didn’t happen.’ I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually. I don’t even talk about him in the past tense. I say, ‘What he likes to do is this.’ I never think, ‘What Steve used to like to do.’ My head never goes there. I wanted to record a song that wasn’t working and I said, ‘I need to do it from top to bottom at Albini’s.’ That’s not going to happen.”
YouTube
Along with Rob Bochnik and Spencer Tweedy, Kim Deal plays two tracks from Nobody Loves You More for a holiday fundraiser in November 2024 in Chicago.